Sword Art Online II- Mother's Rosario

Mother's Rosario, the final narrative arc to Sword Art Online II, was quite a positive surprise to me.  I'm not knowledgeable with notable directors and writers within the anime industry, but the narrative style had a distinct mechanical difference in its storytelling from Phantom Bullet that I had to check whether or not a change in production was made. Same writer and director as Phantom Bullet: Tomohiko Ito (who also wrote for a few episodes of Sword Art Online and the script for Death Note). A cynical part of me wants to attribute a portion of this success once again to the low bar the franchise set for itself, but more genuinely I thought the show had really developed with regards to structure and content. Mother's Rosario expands on Phantom Bullet's successful moments and distinguishes itself from the rest of the Sword Art Online franchise thus far.

they're waiting

I've stated this before in my response to Phantom Bullet, but the point becomes much clearer in Mother's Rosario: the biggest area of improvement in Sword Art Online II is its centralized narrative structure. Sword Art Online's episodes are self-contained and sometimes smaller narrative arcs exist in a span of two to three episodes, but Sword Art Online II's arcs take longer trajectories and are given adequate time to develop a complexity not found in the original series (which had six distinct writers for a course of twenty four episodes). This furthered development is aided by having Asuna as the protagonist rather than Kirito, who is demoted (or promoted, depending on your perspective) to being a brick in a wall somewhere. Where Sinon is the crux of the Phantom Bullet narrative, Asuna is the focal point of Mother's Rosario's narrative constructs.

Mother's Rosario parallels Asuna's desire to share the gaming world with her strict mother to her desire to help share the real world to a terminally ill friend who is confined to virtual reality. Asuna lives a life full of material comforts, from a large house in crowded Japan to having a housekeeper. Such a lifestyle is possible because of the hard work of Asuna's mother, an austere and ambitious businesswoman. Although living with a comfortable number of luxuries, Asuna is detached from her mother who is determined to get Asuna caught up from the two years she was trapped in Sword Art Online. To Asuna's dismay, this means transferring the young girl to a proper school and threatening to take away her virtual reality headset to get her away from Kirito who the mother sees as a bad influence. While she contemplates the possibility of never being to enter the virtual world again, Asuna meets and befriends a young girl online named Yuuki, who is revealed to be bedridden and deteriorating from AIDS in the real world. Yuuki had agreed to a clinical trial testing the use of a Medicuboid, a medically purposed virtual reality access point designed to improve the quality of life for terminally ill patients; Yuuki has been confined to virtual reality for three years due to her condition.

find that invisible wall sweet spot

Although Mother's Rosario barrows similar themes from Phantom Bullet, a distinct lack of antagonistic conflict leads to a sentimentality that is uniquely present throughout the narrative arc. Yuuki's efforts and the message she embodies to make just a small, but personally significant, mark on the world was inspiring and made the friendship between Asuna and Yuuki feel all the more genuine and delicate. A common point of criticism is directed towards Asuna's minimal character development, but I would argue that in her short time with Yuuki, Asuna realized the true impact of fighting for the happiness of others. Where she once sought to keep the virtual world as a means of escape, Asuna now values expressing and sharing her virtual world as a means of building understanding and trust.

Asuna as a character has taken on many roles and interpretations throughout the Sword Art Online franchise, but, admittedly, she isn't particularized in any way within Mother's Rosario. She's still known as the "Berserk Healer" within the gaming world but there aren't many defining adjectives that come to mind. Asuna's placid character is a valid point of criticism especially after how strongly and enigmatically she was presented in the first half of Sword Art Online, but such a mild approach to her character lends to the sentimental aspect of the series. It's reassuring to see that even the heroine badass doesn't have everything figured out and that she too has relatable problems. As an extension, one could even argue that Asuna isn't particularized because she's meant to represent an entire demographic of people where gaming has become a source of tension and trouble. Asuna confronts this issue by sharing the virtual world with her mother and revealing how she truly feels (about family, friends, school, expectations, obligations, hopes and dreams) and by doing so, bridges the gulf between her mother and herself. The world of Alfheim Online transforms from an escapist fantasy to a world that encourages and supports her in her endeavors and newfound determinations.

bunch of leaderboard try-hards

Mother's Rosario's success over the other arcs in the franchise comes from its better developed message about video game culture. The show doesn't aim to comment on or present games as solely a source of escapism, but rather paints gaming culture as a unifying force that brings people together, given the opportunity. Gaming is something that builds common ground across a wide number of peoples, like chess or soccer. The way Asuna leapt onto Alfheim Online to meet with friends right after school reminded me of the way that my friends and I leapt onto Minecraft or Team Fortress 2 right after school and all the adventures we had then, years ago. Even today we still periodically keep in touch in this manner. I didn't really think much of it at the time, but in retrospect I can see that we created characters for ourselves and entire worlds to share with others.  It sounds emotionally dramatic, but that's the depiction Mother's Rosario aimed for and achieved.

'full zerk gear or kick'

I was curious about how others had responded to Mother's Rosario and to my dismay a lot of reviews focused primarily on the Phantom Bullet arc and simply mentioned Mother's Rosario in passing. After spending some time in sorting out Sword Art Online II, I can understand how when the series is taken as a lump sum it's only natural to compare it entirely to Sword Art Online without a closer look at each arc, but I was honestly frustrated at most of the reviews. I noticed that in a lot of online written and video reviews, technical presentation (which is great in SAO II, by the way) is overly emphasized and any attempt at analysis felt more like a gut reaction rather than a careful inspection behind the reasons and methods. Maybe it's just a hole that the Sword Art Online franchise dug itself into, but there's just constant focus on Kirito's romantic interests that detracts from a lot of the underlying values within the series. Sword Art Online II struggles in many areas, but I feel as if a lot of its successes are overlooked or simply dismissed.

In equalizing the entire Sword Art Online II series, the show is a conclusive improvement over its predecessor (again, low bar, yadda, yadda) and shows a definite maturation, especially in Mother's Rosario. Sword Art Online II as a whole marks a much needed departure away from a dependence on the romance between Kirito and Asuna to pursue an attempt at bringing forwards other, more relevant issues that makes use of its video game setting. While the show itself may not stand tall due to its repeatedly (and annoyingly) chanted flaws, Mother's Rosario is very much a solid narrative arc with distinguishable success in its trajectory and presentation.

'when is chest train starting'

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So that's the wrap on the Sword Art Online series. I didn't really think the franchise was really anything spectacular because the various stories all had distinct issues and styles that it was difficult for the Sword Art Online universe to really take a strong, singular identity. This leads to that hole the series dug for itself that I mentioned, where a lot of misses and strikes against the show go unforgotten across seasons. Still, the Sword Art Online franchise left enough of an impression on me to want to take a closer look at some of the more interesting topics and ideas that I noticed, even if only for a brief moment. Here are two points that might interest you that I didn't really spend too much time on:

• The Medicuboid device and video games as a therapeutic utility
• Asuna's mom as a statement that marriage and having kids doesn't mean having to end a career (the working mom is an increasingly common character in anime)